PS 3545 
.H528 
R7 

1906 
Copy 1 



Robert Ellsworth, 
His Book 



FOLLOWirSIG 

ROBERT ELLSWORTH, 
FAILURE 



Copyright, J906, 

— BY — 

HERBERT BRIGHAM WHITE 

Hartford, Conn. ^* 



UBSA«Y of CONGRESS 


Two Copies Received 


FEB 


2 1906 


ft CoDi'-isht Entry 
^LASS (Z XXc, No. 



Fofewofd J 

For the man whose song is the jingle 

of gold, 
Whose poetry is balanced accounts, 
This book can have no meaning: 
To all such Robert Ellsworth must 

ever remain an enigma. 

For the man of ideals, 

Who can believe that Nature has a 

great lesson to teach 
Which, rightly interpreted, 
AVould make man better, happier, 

Yvortluer, 
This book is written. 



PREFACE 

This little volume being made up of 
extracts from Robert's journal, exact- 
ly as he wrote them from day to day, 
is necessarily somewhat fragmentary 
and disjointed in its character. I have 
made no attempt to smooth it into a 
symmetrical whole. But the verses 
and essays tells in their simple wa}^, a 
fAovj that, seemingly visional, was 
with him a conviction. 



ROBERT ELLSWORTH, HIS BOOK 



In the depth of the silent forests, 
embraced in the arms of purple light 
that creep down from above through 
interstices in the green foliage, all is 
so harmonious, so simple, that nothing 
seems to exist. The brook ripples at 
our feet, murmuring its little song, and 
we hear it not; the boughs, with their 
tiny hands outstretched, implore, — 
zephyrs, the custodians of the lore of 
vast expanses of ancient forests and 
mountain fastnesses hoary grown with 
age, bolder than the rest, tap us lightly 
with gentle hand, but we heed them 
not; — the senses sleep. 

Distant reverberations, barely audi- 
ble, timidly smite the ear, and lead us 
on through long avenues of green and 
brown, to where the mighty cataract 
thundering its note of wisdom, gath- 
ered from the everlasting hills, awak- 
ens the slumberous mind, and the 
slave of care, refreshed, bounds with 
life, and drinks deep at nature's font. 

Upon an October afternoon when 
the golden sunlight shimmers amidst 
golden leaves that hardly move, when 
gleams the red of flaming sumac, 



counterfeiting other ruby beams, 
which, commingling in the purple 
haze, stream from the hillside o'er the 
peaceful valley where the lov/ing cattle 
graze midst grasses straight and still, 
— Nature seems to sleep. 

But as evening draws on apace, airy 
messengers whisper a greeting to all, 
and the grasses nod a welcome, tossing 
boughs quiver in sympathy, the little 
leaves tremble vv^ith delight, and across 
the meadow the winding stream rip- 
ples on its way into the golden sea of 
the West, where float, like ships of 
war in coats of gray, God's fleet of 
angry clouds, to battle do, that drowsy 
nature may be roused and clarified 
through the spectacle ,^ 

Given to thoughtful consideration of 
Nature, who, in the open fields, would 
not stand with head bared, that the 
dome of thought might be free as the 
azure sky which bends above, that the 
brow might be as unconfined as the 
horizon's line? 

Wistfully, we gaze into the blue sea 
above, from the green shore, and vain- 
ly strive to fathom its depth, or fix its 
boundary. Its waves of crystal zephyrs 
recede into the hazy distance far be- 
yond our line of vision. 



The eye of day looks down from 
across that hazy sea, and its rays of 
light impotent beat upon the glassy 
stream, impervious as the solid rock. 
The earth absorbs its warmth, and 
fertile grows, but its secrets are hidden 
safe within its breast. With steady 
gleam it bathes our head in light, 
and we uplifted feel the luminous 
thought within lighting the chamber of 
the mind, until the sun and we, the 
earth, the sky, — all. All, seem as one, 
each in its separate sphere : and we are 
happy there, where all is peace and 
harmony, and all mystery grows so 
deep and big, all seems explained, 
through its simple depths ; and we are 
one with God and Nature, and little 
man can no longer hurt where the 
drone of bees and hum of gnats more 
pleasant is than the clink of brazen 
gold ^ 

On the mountain-side, in caverns 
deep and wild, where walls tapestried 
with rocks and roots of gnarled oak 
reach high above our heads, and little 
rills, tumultuous grown, flow gurgling 
through the mountain-pass, and down 
o'er the sloping precipice to the plain 
below; there, where all is still and 
silent as the chamber of the soul, save 



where the rill tempestuous goes, in 
fancy we roam o'er the stretching 
fields below, links of an endless chain 
that bind the earth from pole to pole, 
and hoop its centre as with an iron 
band ; and there, we see the fallen 
leaves, fallen low — decayed to mold 
from whence they came, and the old, 
old oak, that no glory shows, is decay- 
ing too, and its coffiin dust will nourish 
its own acorn's sapling just below on 
the ragged shelf that juts in tortuous 
curves o'erhanging. 

And there, where the cave the moun- 
tain cleft in ages past, harebells 
grow, and violets blue and mild, 
'pon mouldering heaps with moss 
o'ergrown ; and here and there the 
bones of a mighty monarch, strewn 
among the flowering herbage lie, where 
feeds the deer whose noble sire paid 
tribute with his life, at the foot of this 
most ancient throne. And there our 
mortal senses reel, so nearly Nature 
does her secrets show, and our spirit 
roams beyond our ken, and close to 
God we seem. O, precious moments, 
heavy grown with thought, pause in 
the space of time, that the truth may 
swell and so pregnant be, that we may 



those lessons read, that in Nature's 
bosom hidden, lie revealed. 

How great art Thou, O God, who 
didst conceive. How infinite Thou, 
who didst create. How shallow we, as 
the bowl to the wide ocean: — pity, 
God, my littleness j^ 

In parching summer the sun sends 
forth its rays to ripen and prosper veg- 
etation, and the trees sprout to give 
the brotherhood of man a refuge. Veg- 
etation scorched and athirst, and the 
shades of night are drawn and the 
glistening dew gives the thirsty drink. 
The earth thirsts, and the rays of the 
sun are screened, and the flood-gates of 
the heavens open. The chilly winds of 
autumn, and the fruits and nuts ripen 
and fall to the ground, and our beauti- 
ful, short Indian summer gives ample 
time for harvesting. 

The cold blasts of winter, and the 
leaves wither and the sun warms all 
the earth ; the rocks of the hills and 
mountains open, and protection is 
found for the rugged animal life of the 
wild: then does Nature shake out her 
snowy robes, and vegetation sleeps in 
peace and faith, secure from harm 
through the long winter night. 

In the spring we wander through 



the woods and find the blanket with- 
drawn, withered vegetation decaying 
to support new Hfe, the winds blowing 
to dry the soggy earth, the sun glowing 
to warm the chilled roots, and all 
bathed in life-giving ether, pure as the 
source from whence it came. All is 
peace, happiness, harmony. Man alone 
is ever miserable ! Is it possible that 
all else was created perfect, — happy — 
and that man alone was formed defec- 
tive? Sometimes, in the open, I am 
more happy than most can be ; so 
happy I am afraid. When I wander 
through the fields, amidst the hills and 
dales, dotted with trees and ribbed 
with cragged rocks, and crossed and 
pitted with streams and caverns, and 
from the mountain's height look out 
across the peaceful valley o'er the quiet 
cattle feeding by still waters, and into 
the haunts of man, my forehead seeks 
my breast. Of all Nature's giant fam- 
ily, man alone has left the fold, a will- 
ing exile ; he alone has deserted the 
hearth that glows in the west at even- 
tide. He alone, even by implication, 
denies his origin, seemingly humble, 
Teally glorious, miraculous, divine. 



OUR IDEAL 



Bright as ruddy dawn at break of 
day, 
When the East is crowned with 
golden tresses, 
And the ocean's mists of pearly gray. 
Veil the ruby Hps the wave caresses. 

Beautiful as the lily, white and pure. 
That, circled by the sable pall of 
night, 
Unto itself a love-beam lures, 

Unsought, from the nocturnal sheaf 
of light. 



Elusive as the wandering zephyr, 
As it goes dancing o'er the rippling 
streams, 
Nodding the heads of the purple heath- 
er. 
Climbing the sunbeams to the land 
of dreams. 



Frail as the crystal mirror of the lake, 
That in the paly twilight shimmers, 

Where the delicate tracery of the brake. 
And the shadows of the white birch 
shiver. 



Peren'ial as the snow on the mountain- 
top, 
That rears its hoary head with wis- 
dom crowned, 
Above the hills and dales, and wood- 
man's cot. 
That nestle safely at its feet around. 

Sad as the sobbing of the mo'rning 
dove, 
On the topmost bough of the tallest 
tree, 
Striving to tell of the depth of its love, 
For the grove and field, for life and 
for Thee. 

Blithe as the lark in the meadow's hay, 
Bursting its throat with notes of 
melody. 
Gladdening the reaper through all the 
day, 
With its songs of praise and psalm- 
ody. 

Vague as the will-o'-the-wisp at twi- 
light, 
Hov'ring o'er the marsh where the 
whip-poor-will sings. 
Betraying the songster of drowsy 
night. 
To the owl o'er-circling on heavy 
wing. 



THE MEADOW-LOT 



The pitiless North sends an arrows 
flight, 
Borne straight and swift on winged 
feet, 
In the icy blast of the frozen night. 
The russet grasses wade in snowy 
deeps. 

The biting wind howHng on its way 
Where tossing boughs oppose its 
mighty sweep, 
There, in the shadow of that giant fray, 
I lay me down in dreamless peace 
to sleep. 

The thawing sun sends forth its golden 
rays, 
And tears of joy flow from my 
grassy mane. 
Before the fiery darts of spring's mid- 
day, 
Drear winter's robe dissolves in 
sparkling rain. 

The god of day removes my winding 
sheet, 
And nourished at my breast there 
springs to life 
The children of Nature; the purple 
sweet 
O'erflows my lap, an' about my feet 
runs rife. 



NATURE 



A Fragmentt 



One day whilst strolling through the 
greenwood, 
Aimless, following the paths as they 
led, 
A thought arose from the stream where 
I stood, 
That startled my soul from its 
slumbrous bed. 

On the mossy banks of that forest 
prism, 
I sought in vain for the silver key, 
That might release from its subtle 
prison. 
The thought that was given to die 
with me? 

In vain the forests whispered the 
theme, 
Stretched out their giant arms to 
bid me hope, 
'Twas not for me to interpret the 
dream, 
Worthier minds unfold the dotted 
slope. 

As I left the rill for the homeward 
path. 
The cataract's moan smote my will- 
ing ear, 



Threading a boisterous way through 
the mountain pass, 
Where the ribbed rocks baulk, as 
if in fear. 

Beside that steady, onward, forceful 
rush, 
I listened to the song of its thun- 
drous note, 
And I felt that struggling like it, I 
must 
Strive o'er the rocky path, fo»- e'er 
to grope. 

j» jt ^ 

Ring! Silent bell, — see, — I beseech 
thee, ring! 
Thy iron tongue with molten passion 
trembling. 
Strike ! from thy yawning mouth thy 
music fling, 
With thy clangor tell of the doom 
impending. 

On the mountain-side I find thee sway- 
ing, 
Thy ringing voice calls out to me 
from far, 
At thy shrine I kneel, humbly praying, 
In thee, — I find my guiding star. 



In the forest's depths I hear thee toll- 
ing, 
From shore to shore 'cross the silent 
lake, 
Along the ravine thy echoes rolling, 
Speak of faith to all, where all ven- 
erate. 



Why art thou silent in the haunts of 
man? 
The world heeds thee not, at thy 
humble shrine; 
Can I not move where gentle zephyrs 
fan, 
While the oak's thy belfry, thy rope 
a vine? 

Pour out thy healing balm o'er this 
thy land, 
Not to the wild alone thy voice con- 
fine, 

Pity thou,— 



Peace, — thou mysterious spectre, 
shrieking 
Thy wrath o'er the mouth of the 
gaping grave. 
Whose horrid tongue, silence forever 
keeping, 
Mutely speaks me from out the nev/- 
made cave. 

^^w f^f V* 

When the hunted animal is brought 
to bay, it turns, and in the ferocious, 
hopeless, unequal struggle, my heart 
instinctively goes out to it. When 
death less bitter is than life, when the 
grave yawns close beneath his feet, a 
man, if he speak at all, speaks truth — 
dare speak it ^ 

When I close my eyes there appears 
before me, from out the misty sadness 
of the past, a little boy, aged twelve, 
with a frank and open countenance; 
no guile is there. He is confronted by 
a man thrice his bulk. The boy stands 
weaponless. The man is armed with 
the poisonous, fiery darts Nature has 
hidden deep in the bowels of the earth, 
and in mountain's rocky fastnesses, far 
from the reach of man ; he is protected 



by the storied lore of generations of 
research. The boy is armorless. The 
man is refuged, — safe behind the bul- 
warks of public opinion, surrounded by 
a vast army of banded brothers. The 
boy is in the open, alone, a fair and 
shining mark. Instinct, in the little 
animal, scents danger, and his eyes 
rove restlessly from the cold, cruel, 
shining implements, to the green and 
red dragons, with golden eyes and 
crests of crystal, that wink and blink 
from the shelves in the dark recesses 
of the room, and he would away to the 
fields e^ 

O God, help Thou me, that my 
throbbing nerves may only truth re- 
veal. I see that boy lying prone on the 
tented battlefield, with bloodless 
wounds that mutely cry for mercy. 
For nights and days he has moaned 
and writhed in sleepless agony, his 
mother standing a helpless sentinel by. 
At last the mother sleeps, and alone, 
he weeps and prays for death, fearful, 
trembling, but hoping for sweet re- 
lease, — that death is sleep. 

At last, fainting in delirious dreams, 
his prayers are heard, and death hovers 
close about his head, the unequal 
struggle nearly o'er. In mighty con- 



sultation, allied forces join, and so de- 
cide : that they will tell the boy that he 
is well, that imagination reigns su- 
preme, and the mother that he must 
die «^ 

The scene is changed ; a mighty 
force has joined the light. An old 
physician, hoary grown, gray and ripe 
with years, has raised his banner o'er 
that field — and his force is with the 
boy: and all the drugs and medicines 
are put aside, and through the open 
window the pleasant breath of mead- 
ows sweeps, and for one so weak the 
food of babes is given, unchanged by 
artificial means ; and later, small fruits 
and nuts, man's natural food, un- 
changed by man, and the boy recovers, 
— and lived, — a wreck, to drift about 
on life's broad sea, a helpless derelict. 



When nature calls me home, through 
death, 

When I return to Mother Earth, 
I fear that my imprisoned breath, 

Will to the bleeding thorn give birth. 



Much of the thought set forth in 
this book was born into the world only 
after much travail, much suffering, 
many bitter experiences. From the 
grave I implore, do not satirize, do 
not destroy it wantonly. 



MAN, NATURE'S ANALOGUE 



To experience a miracle, a man need 
but close his eyes in thought. A glance 
from the window suggests a multitude. 
How m.iraculous is the harmony which 
prevails throughout nature's realm! 
The green platform with its nodding 
grass, so soft, that a fall shall not in- 
jure, but hard, that a sure footing may 
be secured, and withal, so beautiful, as 
the sunlight sifts through the leaves of 
the o'erhanging boughs. The lowjy, 
unobtrusive mold, just beneath, — in- 
finite in the variety of the m.iracles it 
may bring forth, working in unison 
with other forces of nature : seemingly 
helpless, even the worm triumphs over 
it, but vegetation rejoices in the vic- 
tory. While armed with a spade, it 
is apparently at our mercy, yet we 
could not possibly destroy even a 
small quantity. From it, the thrifty 
housewife, or the student of economics, 
might well take a lesson, for although 
nature has been termed prodigal, she 
is really prodigally economical. Emer- 
ald blades spring forth everywhere in 
great profusion; the hilts ornamented 
with diamond clusters sparkling in the 
golden sunlight of early morning, form 
a jewel casket that is as fair as it is 
useful, as practical as it is beautiful. 



upon the dewy herbage the horned 
deer and other animals with spreading 
nostrils feed, deriving the energy 
which sustains them, from the earth, 
through the mediate grass, and from 
the atmosphere, the transparent lluid 
in which the earth is immersed. 

The restless, cunning, flesh-consum- 
ing animals, with small nostrils, and 
eyes set close together, as cruel vv^hile 
glowing about to spring, as the un- 
sheathed claws, are sustained by the 
same humble mold, though a little 
more indirectly, through the mediation 
of vegetation, and of the herbiverous 
animals upoa which they prey. It is 
evident that the earth and air contain 
all the life-giving elements that build 
up our bodies and our minds from the 
time of infancy, through the develop- 
ment of the several senses, until dis- 
solution takes place. The germ of the 
thoughts that hurry fleet of foot across 
the mental vision, jostling in the 
crowded passages of the mind in their 
anxiety to find expression, is separated 
from the mold by nature, using the 
word in its broadest sense. Where the 
germ, or fundamental principle under- 
lying all creation originated, it is im- 
possible to determine, for all life is 



capable of supporting all other life. A 
supposedly dead animal may furnish 
life to vegetation, which sustains its 
own progenitors, or its progeny, or 
both ! 

The bodies of some men, and of 
some animals, are capable of better 
analysis and separation, or in a word, 
of better assimilation, than others, 
which partially accounts for the great 
difference in physical and mental 
strength, and quickness of action and 
thought. When this power of assimi- 
lation becomes so feeble that nature's 
endless chain is broken, that a man in 
his relation to nature is useless, a bur- 
den as a living organism, he is lopped 
off and dissolved in nature's labora- 
tory that his ashes may nourish more 
worthy life. Nature is never wasteful, 
she never gives without a return ; she 
loans us her life-building elements, and 
when we are no longer capable of mak- 
ing a return, dissolution takes place, 
that we may make room for more use- 
ful life. That man who interprets na- 
ture's laws wisely, and lives his life 
accordingly who receives each day a 
part of his food direct from nature's 
storehouse, and cleanses his body 
through the inhalation of much out- 



door air, unchanged by the artificial 
methods of man, will prove useful to 
nature, and receive her recognition by 
constantly increasing mental and phy- 
sical endurance and strength. Her ele- 
ments must be utilized, not consumed. 
Nothing can be stolen from nature, or 
used up. Even fire does not consume 
the life-giving principles, but returns 
to the dead(!) earth, in concentrated 
form, the living elements absorbed by 
the tree. The instinct of self-preserva- 
ion is as strongly marked in nature 
as in man, and as no one form of life 
can stand alone, that the w'orld, aye, 
that the universe may endure, harmony 
must prevail. 

Nature, great in all things, greatest 
among poets, greatest of all artists, is 
greater, more practical, and more in- 
genious than the shrewdest business 
man, as the thriving shade-tree well il- 
lustrates. Beautiful, with a beauty the 
artist can only imitate, whispering 
songs of v/isdom no poet can translate, 
and absorbing from the earth and air, 
as a sponge, the leaves which it re- 
turns, to be absorbed by the thirsty 
earth, and reabsorbed, as the fountain 
is fed by the waters in the rocky basin 
which it fills: (fills with pure, living 



water, that could only exist as such, 
through motion, through circulation, 
which is life) and as every living thing, 
animate or inanimate, finds an ana- 
logue in every other living thing, as 
life as a whole is analogous to indi- 
vidual life, so may the world have an 
analogy to the universe, and the uni- 
verse may be analogous to God; and 
Nature seems to say to me, that the 
secret of the cause of life and death is 
the simple law of self-preservation, and 
that the immortal soul is very near to 
God and that an analogy lies close be- 
yond. 



-*- 



TWILIGHT 



Pleasant it is in Niature's peaceful 
realm, 
Where harmony prevails o'er hill 
and dell, 
There in the shadow of the o'erhang- 
ing elm, 
Soothed by the murmurs of the syl- 
van bell. 



There the mind is released from earth- 
ly dross, 
And roams through sweet Elysian 
fields alone. 
Leaving the body on its bed of moss, 
Lulled by the song the brook-side 
insects drone. 



The spirit released of its weight of 
clay. 
One with All, one with God and Na- 
ture is, 
And through her pores, as the moon- 
beams stray, 
Drinks of the peace that in the forest 
lives. 



For me, the shades of night are draw- 
ing near, 
Drear autumn when falls the crim- 
soned leaf. 
Shadowy forms I see across the mere, 
The precursors of my soul's release. 

Slumbrous dreams benumb the decay- 
ing mind, 
Reason wavers under death's mes- 
meric wand, 
A dewy garland the tortured brow en- 
vines, 
Hesitant, the spirit hovers o'er the 
great beyond. 



A COLONIAL BURIAL 



Slow, through the village the proces- 
sion winds, 

The body of a youth, the coffin binds, 

On, toward the forest, with solemn 
tread, 

On, to the silent chamber of the dead. 



Along the path, by the river's side, 
Where the lilies bloom, and serpents 

glide. 
O'er the gentle slope, by the tinkling 

rill. 
Which the tears of weeping nature fill. 



Within the shadow of that gnarled oak, 

Whence trills the cuckoo's mournful 
note. 

On the bosom of Mother Earth fore'er 
to sleep. 

We consign the ashes to gentle Na- 
ture's keep ! 



TRUTH 



Dreamlike, vague, as visions of hope 
Seen through the gauzy veil 
stretched thin by death, — 
As the mimic battle the gods invoke, 
Midst distant hills, when softly stirs 
the summer's breath. 



When the cattle stand knee-deep in 

grass. 

And dimly float as phantom ships, — 

When hopeful youth and his bonny 

lass. 

Taste untold joy with trembling lips. 



When fireflys flit above the lea, 

And the beetle winds his droning 
horn, — 
When the distant crunch of whirring 
wheels, 
Echoes faint across the glimmering 
lawn. 



When rushlights gleam midst maple 
trees, 
And o'er the fields the well-sweep 
groans, — 
When creeping close, the rabbit flees, 
Across the road, where the moon- 
beams shone. 

When the mists of night are hanging 
low, 
Where the river across the meadow 
goes,— 
There, — in the light of creepy, mid- 
night's bow. 
When the stream's golden path- 
way dully glows, — 



Jk 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 







015 873 968 9 # 



